“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1

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George Talbott's Abuse of Dr. Leon Masters MD

Currently, at the Talbott
Recovery Center in Atlanta, GA, Dr. George Douglas Talbott, an admitted
"recovered" alcoholic, runs a rehab clinic that specifically
targets other doctors and medical professionals who have been forced into his
treatment program by a state review board or professional society. His
practices bear uncanny resemblance to the operational ways of Straight Inc. and
The SEED rehabilitation centers. The same web of patient abuse
behind closed doors has now has official sanction as a governing agency
watchdog with coercive control over medical professionals’ licenses through
"monitoring" and investigation. History reveals that his program makes doctors
and nurses commit suicide.

"At least 20 doctors, nurses and other
health professionals who have gone through the Ridgeview Institute's nationally
acclaimed treatment program over the past 12 years have killed themselves since
leaving the hospital."— Atlanta Journal
Constitution

In May, 1999, George
Talbott stepped down as president of ASAM as a jury awarded Dr. Leonard
Masters, of Jacksonville, Florida, a judgment of $1.3 million against Talbott,
his daughter-in-law, and several associates.

The judgment addressed
malpractice, fraud, and false imprisonment that occurred during Dr. Masters' stay
at Talbott's treatment facility in 1994.

A judge co-owned the Talbott-Marsh Recovery Center
with the former ASAM president. Judge Marsh court-ordered “impaired”
persons to “treatment” in the Talbott-Marsh Recovery Center. She also ordered records sealed that reported
past addictive behaviors of those deemed “cured” by Dr. George Talbott. Talbott-Marsh
Recovery Center is now Talbott Recovery Center (or sometimes called Talbott
Recovery Campus) because Judge Marsh dropped out of TMRC because of the abuse
allegations, and thus her name was dropped from the official name of the
facility.

Dr. Talbott was known for
severe abusive behavior which was implicated in the suicide deaths of many
medical professionals under his “monitoring” program.

The
ASAM president was found guilty of human rights abuse against medical
professionals entrusted to his care in rehabilitation or substance abuse
treatment facilities. Dr. Talbott was found to have targeted medical
whistleblowers for brutal psychological violence at the treatment center.

The
abuse of Dr. Masters was chilling in 1994.[i][ii][iii] Testifying against Talbott at the Masters'
trial was Anne Geller, a past president of the ASAM before Talbott. [iv] The
degree to which Talbott was able to intimidate witnesses was evident at the
Masters' trial. For their own protection, witnesses were not identified in
the court record by name and the court record was afterward sealed to prevent
leaks to the media and public.

Masters'
attorney, Eric S. Block of Jacksonville, said, “No one ever accused him of
having a problem with alcohol. Not his friends, not his wife, not his seven
children, not his fellow doctors, not his employees, not his employers, No
one.” Dr. Roger Goetz, then-director of
the Physicians Recovery Network (PRN), a branch of Florida's Department of
Professional Regulation, accused Dr. Masters in 1992 of excessive narcotics prescriptions
for his chronic pain patients. Goetz told Masters that he could surrender his
medical license until allegations were disproved or submit to an extensive
evaluation at Anchor in Atlanta, GA. Goetz was a recovering alcoholic who had
been treated at the Atlanta facility and who sent many other physicians there. Masters went to the facility. Instead of merely
being evaluated, he was “immediately immersed into treatment,” was diagnosed as
“alcohol dependent” and was enrolled in the Talbott recovery program. He was released four months later, in May
1992, and forced to sign a five-year “continuing care” contract. His professional reputation and career were
tarnished. While he was enrolled in treatment, Dr. Masters' employer, the
Family Care Partnership, fired him. Dr.
Masters was forced to stay in the Talbott recovery program because “if any
doctor dared to dispute the team's diagnosis, if they wanted to leave and go
home, or even consent to get treatment in their home state,” Talbott recovery
personnel “would threaten to report that doctor to his or her state board of
medicine ... as being an impaired physician, leaving necessary treatment
against medical advice.”

During Masters’ treatment
at Talbott Recovery Center (TRC) there was a lack of medical supervision. Medical charts were signed off by TRC doctors
that the patients never met. None of the
other patients dared to interfere to stop the abuse because of possible
punishments such as extensions of stay, loss of privileges, or increased cost
of additional laboratory or clinical studies billed to the patient. Talbott himself, as a witness, was not
believed by the jury and his testimony helped Masters’ case. An agent of the state's medical group, PRN
(Physicians' Recovery Network) had originally sent Masters to TRC because he
was alleged to have written too many narcotic prescriptions, not because of
drinking. When TRC could not find a problem with his prescribing narcotics for
his patients nor with taking them himself, they finally coerced him to admit to
drinking each evening and said he could not leave until he completed treatment
for substance abuse.

At TRC (Talbott Recovery
Center or Campus), all new patients joined right in with mandatory A.A.
meetings and there was indoctrination into A.A. with insistence that the
patient loudly confess to being an alcoholic.
This submission to the “power of the group” began on admission, before
the four day evaluation was completed. In
other words, it was a foregone conclusion that you were going to stay or lose
your license because you started right out with treatment. The TRC program allowed no visitors unless
you sign up for the family program (which the client pays additional money
for). No weekends away from TRC unless
the group approved and then only 2 or 3 weekends in four months. There was no
permitted reading of recovery material that was not A.A. /12-step, no reading
of medical journals allowed. If a client was suspected of making of close
friends while in the program, this would immediately result in forced separation.
Failure to participate in A.A. meant expulsion from TRC and the anticipated
result would be loss of one’s medical license. [v]

George
Douglas Talbott faced no professional repercussions for being found guilty of
human rights abuse against Dr. Masters and many other “clients.” No
changes in treatment protocols were made to prevent further human rights abuse.
There emerged instead discussion as to how to legally and legislatively protect
the ASAM organization from another lawsuit in the future. Talbott continues to present himself and ASAM
as the most qualified medical advocates for treatment of “impaired” medical
professionals.

Description: Medical
malpractice, false imprisonment, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud claims by
doctor who claimed that he was held in an alcoholism recovery program he
claimed he didn't need. Dr. Masters claimed that defendants coerced him into
rehab treatment at the Talbott-Marsh Recovery Campus in College Park, Georgia
under the threat of losing his medical license. He claimed that what happened
to him cost him his career. Plaintiff was earning $160,000 a year in 1991 and
terminated by Family Care Partnership while he was in treatment. He never was
able to earn the same income again and retired in 1994.

Outcome: Plaintiffs'
verdict for $1.3 million in compensatory damages.

Plaintiff's
Experts:
Dr. Anne Geller

Defendant's
Experts:
Unknown

Comments: This case was
reported to have been settled before the jury returned its verdict on
plaintiffs' punitive damage claim.

"Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself." Confucius

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who
points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who
at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat."

Theodore
Roosevelt- Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic",
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

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